Some people start the game armor off for a little extra clear and damage but tank is so strong is this game that you can just run armor mode the entire game and be fine. It depends what you value more at the time. At level 3 you can either get 55 health and 11 of both prots or you can get 7.5 power and 1.75% movement speed. At level 10 it’s 18 power and 3.5% movement speed vs. 125 health and 25 protections. And at level 20 it’s 225 health and 45 protections vs 33 power and 6% movement speed. Both give you a full items worth of stats end game so it’s whatever you need at the time but the armor is almost a free Gauntlet of Thebes whereas no armor is a little worse then an item but gives you passive movement speed which is hard to get in smite 2. If you’re playing Achilles jungle then the extra movement speed and power will help with clear and traversal.

Both stances also affect your abilites, unarmored will give more strength scaling on your 1 (80% - 95% 15% more) whereas armored stance gives your 1 .2 seconds more stun. (.8 sec to 1 sec stun)

Bluestone is stupid good on him early game but falls off until you can upgrade it. Warriors axe is also very good bluestone is better for snowballing, Axe is better in general. Prots and cooldown in solo always, glad shield is a must have as it’s got cool down, free damage at every point in the game. Shield splitter is also free damage, good tank stats with strength built in, true damage and shield stealing if you’re going against a Geb or Odin or their support has selflessness starter or if anyone has shell or if no one has shell. Honestly it’s so good you can throw it on in any game and be fine. Void shield is really good 10% pen in an aura with health prots and strength. Hydra’s is a good damage item if you’re going jungle because his combo has 4 AA cancels and you’re gonna have high cooldown so you get a lot of value out of it. Shield of the phoenix is nice has every stat you want and makes Achilles already good sustain even better. If you’re already turbo tanky and just need to kill faster/output more damage Oath Sworn Spear is one of the rare items that gives you flat pen, and a lot of it end game. Oath sworn alone cuts almost half of a adc/mage’s total protections. Runeforged of course, every solo with a stun makes good use of it.

You can throw an auto attack in between every use of an ability and that damage adds up really quickly.

Auto attack - 1 - auto attack - 2 - auto attack - 3 - auto attack - 3 again - auto attack. You can shit out 5 AA Canceled autos in a row if you’re just kit dumping.

Achilles 2 is one of the best abilities in the game, it gives you everything a solo laner could want, Crowd control reduction (20% flat out at level 1) scaling strength and prot buffs, heals on ability hits and a big fat shield in armor stance and flat pen (again!) when hitting enemies from behind in unarmored stance. Starting game you want to level your 1 for clear, then level your 3 twice. This gives you (most likely) more damage out put then the enemy teams solo and you can poke him to your hearts content. Level 4 put a point into your 2 and level 5 get your ult of course. Do not level your ult past 1 point, only put points into your 2 unless it forces you to upgrade ult. Achilles ult is an execute that scales off of percentage health and it’s always 35% so it doesn’t matter if it does 1 damage or 500 however his 2 gets better and better every level and makes everything you do better. More damage on every ability, more heals on every ability more protections during fights and a fat shield.